The challenge of secularism: A grade notes

OCR
Christianity

AO1: Secularism & secularisation: religion in today’s society

Secularisation is the sociological process by which religion’s influence in society changes, especially through decline or movement into private life.
Secularism is a political principle about religion’s proper place in the public sphere, including state and culture.
Secularism takes open and closed forms.
Procedural or open secularism uses inclusive cultural participation.
Its goal is coexistence between religious and secular worldviews, allowing religion a visible public role.
Programmatic or closed secularism uses legal restriction of religion in public institutions and life.
Its goal is to confine religion to private life, removing it from public life.
Religion once dominated society and was inseparable from culture and governance.
Today, western countries such as the UK are becoming more secular, shown in declining religious adherence and influence.
Census data shows Christian identity fell from 59% in 2011 to 46% in 2021.
This partly reflects disillusionment with traditional religion.
The Enlightenment encouraged science as an alternative source of knowledge, weakening religious authority.
New Atheism reflects frustration that religion resists values such as freedom and equality.
However, religion has not disappeared.
Grace Davie describes Britain as “believing without belonging”, since private belief continues despite institutional decline.
Many still pray, and Christian rites such as baptism, marriage and funerals remain significant.
Tom Holland argues that Christian assumptions about the weak and human rights still shape British society.
This raises two debates: whether religion is declining, and whether this is desirable.

AO1: Replacing religion as the source of moral values: Secular humanism

The Enlightenment challenged religion as the main source of truth and morality.
Galileo showed the authority of science over religious doctrine.
Locke emphasised freedom of belief, while Kant sought to confine religion “within reason,” partly because of religious conflict.
Secular humanism develops this trajectory into a worldview.
It is not just a critique of religion, but gives a positive account of truth and morality without God.
It grounds truth in reason, evidence and scientific inquiry, rejecting revelation and religious authority.
Truth is therefore provisional and open to revision, rather than fixed by sacred texts.
Its moral framework follows from this.
Ethics are based on human wellbeing, autonomy and flourishing, rather than divine command.
It affirms the dignity of persons, influenced by Kant’s idea of treating individuals as ends in themselves, which underpins human rights.
It combines autonomy with human flourishing, in a broadly Aristotelian sense, as the goal of ethics.
Secular humanism can justify different politics depending on what is prioritised.
If autonomy and pluralism are emphasised, it supports open secularism, allowing religion a public role.
If rationality and harm reduction are prioritised, it can justify closed secularism, restricting religion’s public role.
Thus, secular humanism replaces religion as a source of truth and morality, while allowing different conclusions about religion’s place in society.

AO1: Freud

Freud challenged religious authority through psychology, asking why, if there is no God, so many believe there is.
His answer was that religion functions as wish-fulfilment and social control.
For Freud, society depends on socialisation, where each generation represses its animalistic instincts.
The superego is the internalised memory of childhood authority.
If raised religious, this is intensified by moral stories, divine commands, heaven, hell, and God as an all-seeing father who judges private thoughts.
Religious belief comforts people by projecting order, protection and purpose onto a chaotic world.
During childhood, order is represented by the father; in adulthood, religion projects an eternal father onto reality.
Freud’s issue was not simply that religion represses instincts, but that it represses through illusion and infantile dependence.
A secular society would still need restraint, but people would regulate themselves through rational understanding rather than guilt, fear and submission.
This is more truthful, because it faces reality without illusions.
It is less neurotic, because instincts are managed as human impulses rather than cosmic guilt.
It is more autonomous, because morality is obeyed through adult understanding.
It is more adaptable, because rational rules can be revised, whereas religious rules can become rigid as divine commands.
Freud therefore thought religion belonged to humanity’s “ignorant childhood days” and should be replaced by science.
Science provides order without illusion.
This model fits liberalism because free societies require rational self-regulation, public justification and tolerance of uncertainty rather than divine authority.

AO1: Dawkins: Militant atheism / anti-theism & the rise of New atheism

Militant atheism, or anti-theism, became culturally prominent in the 21st century through New Atheism.
Its method fits open secularism because it relies on cultural persuasion, not state control.
However, its goal is more radical than programmatic secularism, because it seeks religion’s voluntary disappearance even from private life.
New atheists defend religious freedom, but want to persuade religious people to abandon faith by winning the cultural “marketplace of ideas”.
They argue society would be better without religion because it is harmful, even in liberal forms and as private belief.
Its key figures are Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett.
Dawkins coined “meme” as the cultural equivalent of a gene.
A meme is a unit of cultural transmission, such as an idea, slogan, belief or practice, spreading by imitation rather than genetics.
Dawkins interprets religion this way, describing religious beliefs as memes spreading “epidemiologically” through parents, communities, teachers and institutions.
Dawkins explains religion as the product of psychological pressures: need for authority, credulity, fear of death, desire to reunite with dead loved ones, and desire to understand origins.
Religion exploits these existential questions by giving childish and irrational answers.
He compares it to belief in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus: stories told to children to encourage good behaviour.
Dawkins thinks it is “infantile” to rely on others to give life meaning.
The “truly adult view” is that life is as meaningful as we choose to make it.
Dawkins also focuses on children.
Evolution makes children dependent on adults, so they are vulnerable to religious “infection” before critical thinking develops.
Religious indoctrination exploits this through hell, which children experience not metaphorically but as real and terrifying.
Dawkins argues mental harm can be as damaging as physical harm.
He points to apostates needing therapy for fear of hell.
For him, this justifies the accusation of “child abuse”.

AO2: Science vs religion on Methodology

The scientific method tells us what current evidence gives most reason to believe.
Dawkins argues faith is an excuse to believe what one wants.
In doubting Thomas, Jesus implies needing less evidence makes someone more blessed.
Christian epistemology makes blindness to evidence virtuous, which can harm society, e.g. resisting embryo research and blood transfusions.
More broadly, faith encourages child-like reliance on authority, undermining democratic critical thinking.
Unscientific epistemic habits make people vulnerable to emotional manipulation by demagogues.

Counter

However, McGrath responds that this ignores natural theology.
Aquinas’ 5 ways aim at a posteriori proof of a higher power, making faith in the Christian God reasonable.
Rational people have been persuaded towards belief later in life by such arguments, including McGrath and Antony Flew.
So, faith is not blind, but reason-supported and evidence-sensitive.
The 5 ways may be incorrect, but not dangerously irrational.

Evaluation

However, Dawkins’ misunderstandings aside, natural theology is irrational.
God’s arguments at best prove some higher power.
Using them to support faith in a particular God stretches them beyond what they show.
Natural theologians say this leap is where faith applies.
Yet this admits belief goes beyond what evidence justifies.
McGrath assumes rationality is secured by giving reason a role.
But using reason to support faith can be rationalisation, not rationality.
Hume says the wise person proportions belief to evidence.
Only that secures rational belief sensitive to changing evidence.
Religious belief may fit the evidence, but is not proportioned to it.
So, sophisticated theology still promotes an unscientific mindset.

AO2: The harmfulness of religion

Dawkins characterises the Old Testament God as “ethnic cleanser … misogynistic, homophobic, infanticidal, genocidal” and “the most unpleasant character in all fiction”.
The implication is that worshipping God perpetuates violence and prejudice.
He points to our evolved tribal tendency to favour our group and distrust the “other”.
Religion worsens this by dividing humanity into believers and non-believers, shown by religious conflict.

Counter

McGrath counters that Dawkins unfairly focuses on fundamentalists.
Religion is distorted by extremists to legitimise prejudices.
No worldview should be blamed for misuse by fanatics.
McGrath adds that Jesus is biblically presented as our role model.
He embodied agape: selfless love of all, regardless of background, as in the Good Samaritan.
Christian ethics therefore orients us away from dehumanisation.

Evaluation

Ultimately, McGrath’s argument is true but misleadingly incomplete.
He risks a No True Scotsman fallacy, redefining “true Christianity” to exclude violent interpretations.
This overlooks flaws in the tradition itself, especially biblical passages which can motivate extremism.
Examples include subordination of women, condemnation of homosexuality and tacit endorsement of slavery.
So, extremists do not simply misuse Christianity; aspects of Christianity can attract and enable them.
Religion is both a symptom and a cause of prejudice.
McGrath claims theological reinterpretation addresses such passages.
But religion understands itself as revealed eternal truth from God, making sophisticated reframing difficult.
Fundamentalists can always cite the prima facie meaning of problematic verses.
As Harris says, the problem with religious fundamentalism is the fundamentals of religion.
Religion remains burdened by the brute reality of texts Mill called “barbarous”.

AO2: Whether secularism tends towards nihilism

Dostoyevsky warned that without God, ‘everything is permitted’.
Ratzinger develops this: without God, morality becomes unconstrained human opinion, risking relativism.
Without higher moral authority, the state gains power over morality, as totalitarianism showed in the 20th century.
This assumes a ‘dependence’ anthropology, where ethics requires transcendent grounding.

Counter

However, liberal political theorists argue God is not needed to limit the state.
Instead, we have democracy, human rights and constitutional controls.
Kant grounds liberalism in an ‘autonomy’ anthropology, where moral law derives from rationality.
This can fail, e.g. Germany’s fall from democracy to Nazism.
But empirically, secular liberal democracies avoid totalitarianism more reliably than theocracies.
They also usually have better social health markers, such as violent crime, teen pregnancy, education and health.
Cause and correlation are complex.
But Sam Harris says secularists need only show compatibility with flourishing, defeating the nihilism critique.

Evaluation

Nietzsche is more balanced than Freud and the New Atheists, since he accepted that abandoning religion leads to nihilism.
But contra Ratzinger, Nietzsche sees nihilism as a transition problem, caused by religion’s long shaping of moral psychology.
History supports this better, since ancient Greek philosophy developed humanistic ethics, as does contemporary philosophy.
The historical contingency of revealed religion undermines the supposed necessity of dependence on transcendent values.
If nihilism is transitional, not permanent, then its appearance in secular societies does not prove morality requires God.
It only shows moral systems need time to reconstruct.
So, empirical and historical data makes liberal autonomy anthropology more plausible.

AO2: Freud’s views on Christian ethics as infantile

Freud argues religious ethics extends infantile moral socialisation into adulthood.
Children obey through fear of the disciplinarian father.
Religion projects this authority onto God the father.
Religious adults are left with an infantile moral orientation, motivated by fear and appeasement.
Freud thinks a developed mode is possible: rationally recognising that laws serve the social good.
Such autonomy improves self-control and virtue.

Counter

However, natural law ethics includes autonomy: appreciating and applying God’s precepts, while virtuously aligning intentions with our telos.
Furthermore, Jung shows religious ethics is not simply external law, but enables virtue through psychological development.
Its archetypal stories help us understand life’s narrative and cease unhealthy repression.
For example, Cain and Abel helps us acknowledge envy rather than dangerously repress it.

Evaluation

Nonetheless, these refinements do not overcome Freud’s deepest objection.
Christian ethics still infantilises moral psychology under God as a disciplinarian father.
Mill strengthens this critique:
A moral system involving heaven and hell inevitably imbues motivation with self-interest, contrary to virtue.
Aquinas tries to integrate Aristotle’s view that virtues are intrinsic goods, not instruments of self-interest.
But Christian ethics still contains the greatest carrot and stick imaginable: infinite heaven and hell.
Avoiding motivation by them requires superhuman discipline, and even knowing whether they motivate us requires superhuman insight.
Heaven and hell are so powerful that they dominate motivation.
Moral psychology becomes child-like: responsive to reward and punishment.
So, Freud and Mill show that afterlife teleology instrumentalises virtue.
Christian ethics remains underdeveloped psychology.

AO1: The value of Faith schools

The issue of faith schools shows the wider tension over Christianity’s place in modern Britain.
Many state schools were founded by the Church of England or Roman Catholic Church in the 19th century, before entering the public system.
This legacy was formalised by the 1944 Education Act, which funded faith schools if they met curriculum standards.
Today, over a third of primary schools and just under a fifth of secondary schools retain Christian affiliation, showing religion remains institutionally embedded.
Supporters argue faith schools provide high academic standards, moral formation and community.
They meet parents’ wishes for education within a particular worldview and remain popular, often oversubscribed.
Research suggests even non-religious parents apply because of good discipline and ethos.
Defenders also argue faith schools contribute to diversity, since the UK includes Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu institutions.
However, critics argue faith schools promote segregation and indoctrination, undermining social cohesion.
Concerns exist over sensitive topics such as LGBT+ inclusion, where religious conscience may conflict with equality.
Christian admissions policies are criticised for privileging middle-class families willing to attend church.

AO2: Debating faith schools

Faith schools have significant freedom over RE because it is not part of the National Curriculum.
Many can teach according to their religious character, though limited by law.
Dawkins calls this ‘wicked’ indoctrination, exploiting children’s dependence before critical thinking develops, especially through hell.
He notes the absurdity of calling a child communist or right-wing, arguing it is similarly absurd to say ‘Christian child’ or ‘Muslim child’.

Counter

McGrath first agrees with Dawkins about the problem of indoctrination.
He claims all belief should be subject to evidence-based reasoning, and that blind faith is not truly Christian.
McGrath says Dawkins makes a reasonable point, but it gets lost in ‘hyped-up rhetoric’: calling religious upbringing ‘child abuse’ and implying religion survives through indoctrination.

Evaluation

McGrath is correct about some religious people.
However, most religious people, over 90%, have their parents’ religion.
Not all are indoctrinated, but this is far higher than expected if children freely chose beliefs.
Faith schooling is part of this influence.
Children may not be forcibly indoctrinated, but they are strongly shaped into religion, not through evidence-based reasoning.
This is soft indoctrination.
So Dawkins’ point is justified: without social transmission, religion might disappear.
McGrath is right that there are arguments for religion, but few believe because of them; the data suggests belief is caused by being raised in faith.
Furthermore, ‘child abuse’ is not empty rhetoric, since ex-Christians sometimes need therapy for fear of hell.